US guards abused me, claims Guantanamo Briton

A Manchester man released from Guantanamo Bay told Europe’s top human rights body today he was beaten, shackled, kept in a cramped cage and fed rotten food as part of “systematic abuse” while in American custody.

Jamal al-Harith’s testimony before a Council of Europe panel in Paris came as part of an inquiry by the body into human rights abuses at the US detention facility in Cuba to be made public in a report due out early next year.

Aside from beatings, Al-Harith said he suffered humiliation and interrogations that lasted up to 15 hours during his two years at Guantanamo. He was returned to Britain in March.

On one occasion, al-Harith said he refused to take an unidentified injection and was chained up and attacked by five men wearing helmets, body armour and shields.

“They jumped on my legs and back and they kicked and punched me,” he said. “Then I was put in isolation for a month.”

Al-Harith said he was kept mostly in a wire cage and given food that had “date markings 10 to 12 years beyond their usable date” as well as “fruit that was black and rotten.”

Captured in Afghanistan in October 2001, al-Harith maintains he never had any ties to terrorism and had travelled to the region to attend a religious retreat in Pakistan.

Al-Harith, 37, is one of four Britons released from the US naval base in Cuba to have filed a lawsuit in a US court seeking more than £5m (€7.3m) each in damages.

Kevin McNamara, who presided over today’s hearing for the council, said the global fight against terrorism should not be used as an excuse to violate basic human rights, the right to a fair trial and the rule of law.

“Hundreds of what must be presumed to be innocent people remain in indeterminate detention in Guantanamo Bay,” he said. “By all accounts the abuse continues.”